doors666- Good question, My sound cards have 8 outputs, But I don't know yet how to control each one of them separately.
Maybe in Jack it is possible I haven't used it much yet.
I think I can use multiple outputs in ardour, But I think I was having problems last time I tried it, But that was back when I First started using linux and haven't got much past stereo at the moment.

Anyone's running a 2.1 system with stereo amp and sub plate amp? how do you configure the crossover between the two in linux.

I'm in the process of setting that up myself. I'm using a separate crossover (Reckhorn F1 with mods(regs in the power supply and increased gain resistors), feeding it with 2 channels from the computer (Via a DCB1(Pass buffer)) and then taking the summed sub output and feeding the sub amp. It's pretty simple, or are we missing some details from your config?

I'm in the process of setting that up myself. I'm using a separate crossover (Reckhorn F1 with mods(regs in the power supply and increased gain resistors), feeding it with 2 channels from the computer (Via a DCB1(Pass buffer)) and then taking the summed sub output and feeding the sub amp. It's pretty simple, or are we missing some details from your config?

What you want to do in f1 is what i want to do in the sound card. It has 7.1 outs. Tow channel output will goto plain b1 and then to topping. The .1 will goto the sub amp directly. I dont want the full range signal going to my speakers (alpair 7) as the power handling of the speakers drops big time if I feed them with full range signal. I want to setup a crossover at some 80 or 100hz. I can easily do this in windows with the M-Audio control panel applet by setting the crossover frequency and setting the speakers to small, havent figured out in linux.

The new devices, such as Hiface II, are working with the generic driver already.
There's no risk for them opening up their code nowadays. The new generations are sounding better anyhow.

One important point is that there are quite some suppliers out there, who licensed ( and still do ) HiFace I as OEMs ( e.g. Empirical Audio) . For them it means quite a competetive disadvantage to be tight to the propriatary driver. I reckon some of them must have been quite unhappy to see those M2Tech developments. Those guys felt kind of ripped-off for quite some time. I had discussions about it over at AA.

I'm sure we'll see more drivers coming up. But not because standard Linux becomes more popular.

I think these folks do have the huge Android market in mind. You can't afford to stay out of Android. Sooner or later we'll see full USB DAC support for Droids ( some devices - like Galaxy SIII got it working already). You can't let that market go.

IF you use a motherboard with onboard optical or coaxial output (not a separate sound card), is there still an audible benefit in running a Linux o/s ?

The only time you'll find an audible benefit from choosing one OS over another is if one OS supports talking directly to your hardware when another does not. For Windows, this would be ASIO; for Linux, ALSA hardware mode; for Mac OSX, Core Audio. I prefer Linux because it is infinitely customizable and lends itself well to operating as a headless server, which is what I think is the way to go for a dedicated audio PC. If your current OS supports talking directly to the hardware and you have no interest modifying source code or esoteric system settings, there is no advantage to Linux that I am aware of.

That said, I run Linux as my primary OS on all my computers, and I think it's great! If you're curious about it, try it out. It's free.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Old'n'Cranky

Finally, I've heard that using an SSD will result in superior audio replay ?

If you are using the real time kernel, dumping the uncompressed audio files to RAM before playback, and everything is configured perfectly in your system, then an SSD will make no difference in audio quality. It WILL make for a better listening experience however, as the process of pulling the audio off the SSD and storing it in memory will be much faster than a typical hard disk.

Bad configurations can give the illusion that an SSD is producing better audio quality than a hard drive. This can happen when you don't have enough RAM and the operating system swaps some of your audio out to disk (as far as the software is concerned, the audio lives in RAM, but in reality it lives only on the disk). It can also happen if poorly written software is allowed to preempt your audio player and allocate enough RAM to move your audio into swap space. In this case where the audio is being read in real time off the disk, the SSD will perform MUCH better than the hard drive. If you set things up properly, this should never happen.

Hard drives also produce more noise and require more power, though this shouldn't matter if everything is living in RAM and your operating system is providing good power management (your OS will basically turn the hard drive off). Ideally, once the system boots and audio is playing, EVERYTHING will be in RAM and the hard drive will be idle. Puppy Linux is a great example of a distribution that has this feature built in. Check it out if you're concerned about this.